Sea Green

A stunning and unforgettable novel about the pursuit of a creative and independent life, Barbara Hanrahan’s Sea Green is an Australian feminist classic. With a new introduction from Laura Elizabeth Woollett.

Virginia is on a ship bound for London, lured by her creative dreams, leaving behind her weeping mother and father in Adelaide. On the cocoon-like journey, she is struck by the messiness of relationships and her uncontrollable body. But things on the other side of the world are no neater, as she is pulled between her conservative expectations and her magnetic internal life.

In innovative poetic prose, artist and author Barbara Hanrahan plunges us into the possibility-filled London of her youth while reflecting the all-but-unchanged experience of finding independence as a creative woman. Originally published in 1974, Sea Green was inspired by Hanrahan’s experiences but has a life and immediacy all its own.

This jewel-like new edition, featuring an introduction from Stella Prize–longlisted author Laura Elizabeth Woollett and Hanrahan’s own distinctive artwork, re-establishes Sea Green’s place in hearts and minds.

‘An artistic coming-of-age novel like no other. Barbara Hanrahan is as wonderfully idiosyncratic a writer as she is as a visual artist, her prose both extravagant and frank. I hope this book will be remembered as a modern classic.’ – Laura Elizabeth Woollett

'If this is not the kind of writing which "hands over sensation bodily" then I do not know what is' – The Scotsman